I must say...

… AND what I must say is that there’s always a surprise out of the old dorp. Ex Maritzburgia semper aliquod nova. Now I’ve just got by post a quite-nicely designed business card, or is it a prospectus?, from a lady by the name of Astra Delphina EAMD, who interprets tea leaves, studies stars, reads palms, knees and boomps-a-daisy from an upstairs laboratory at the top end of Mahatma Gandhi Boulevard. It says doctor Delphina is highly qualified, please telephone to make an appointment. Oh yes, she achieved a Doctorate in Ethnical Alternative Medicine from the Alternative University of Oskaloosa Iowa U.S. of A, when she was merely Juffrou Maria Skrikhoender. Now she is able to cure almost anything, except death, with alternative ethnical psychotherapy and small pills made of something which looks like bok drol­letjies. Incidentally, I wonder what happened to that horrible sago and raisin pudding my ma used to make in WW2 days — maybe the ingredients got used up by the alternative medical profession in modern-day U.S. of A.

Please, says this prospectus or curriculum vitae, don’t think that because doctor Delphina’s address is top end of M. Gandhi Boulevard that she is just one of those Third World Uganda witchdoctor sorts. You know, those who hand out leaflets saying they can make strong erections, bring good luck in court ca­ses, fix pimples and cause lightning to mortally strike your husband/wife. The doctor works in a white lab coat with a stethoscope and in her laboratory there is only high computer technology and scientific instrumentation. I mean, she does tea leaf reading for the English Upper Classes by e-mail — they just take a digital photograph inside the cup when they’re done with the cream scones and cake forks, then scan this photograph and e-mail it to Pietermaritzburg and get a scanned print-out fortune by return within the hour.

Why, she even does by e­-mail the tea leaves of Ho­norary doctor Iain Palaver, devotee of the late lamented L.“Poepie” van der Post and disciple of a certain prophet named Yoong — an Austra­lian native who lives kaalgat in Caddibarrawirracanna with a million gum trees and some kangaroos and certain sticks to rub together for fire to cook the kangaroos, since the prophet doesn’t believe in matches because science is immoral. And while she’s about it, she does his stars too, especially Mars which is closer than it’s ever been in recorded history and won’t be as close as this again in 20 000 years. And everybody knows Mars is evil and its radiational waves might evilly strike up the Hon Doc’s bottom parts as Satan struck up the bottom parts of Hansie Cronje while he was sleeping. When Hon Doc is about to take a shower, he takes off all his clothes, weighs himself, then sits on his scanner and e-mails the scan to Dr Delphina. She scrutinises this scan for signs of radiational roasting, also in case evil exotic insects have invaded his person in the same way that wattle trees and eucalyptus and khakibos and lantana and non-indigenous evil plant species have invaded, and are satanically destroying, this our otherwise beautiful land down the bottom part of Africa.

Hon Doc must remain in good health, you see, because, according to prophet Yoong’s Aboriginal Sametime Dream Therapy, if everybody dreams the same dream, like anything and all at the same time, then all foreign invasive species will disappear. Pouf! And the world will be beautiful and moral again, as of old. Not as old as Gondwanaland or Pangea of course — things were all lumped together and untidy and immoral in those days. Let’s make it round about that time when there were no wattles, eucalyptus, khakibo­s, jacarandas, bananas, tomatoes, lettuce, monkey-nuts, Indians, Caucasians, Ngunis, cows, chickens, puppy dogs and exotic budgies around. Only Bushpersons doing art in Drakensber­g caves with a whole lot of moral elands dotting the grasslands, and no dagga, which comes from Mexico. Hon Doc and certain such guardians would be around, of course, to sort of supervise and squash Argentine ants and creepies trying to sneak in unseen at ground level. That’s where Doctor Dephina comes in.

Hon Doc has a spread in the Drakensberg, something like Michael Jackson’s Neverland, see, only it’s called Sametime Dreamland and it’s got no swings and uglies for kids. You can go and stay in a Yoongian chalet there where there are no swings and no failed socialism, nor failed capitalism, nor sick society. Doctor Delphina, in her lab coat with stethoscope, and Hon Doc, in game ranger’s uniform with a great big hat, will conduct you round and round the hills and squash Argentine ants and learn the philosophy of Dreamtime Holism. Apply by e-mail to dreamsametime@caddibarrawirracanna.com for a brochure.

Doctor Delphina, naturally, carries a mobile shower and scanning equipment in her solar electrical Winnibago Camper. She offers relief for haemorrhoids using homeopathical earthworm juice. No animal is harmed in the treatment.

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